The Favors
A novel by Jay Uno
In paperback and ebook February 2, 2027.
A novel by Jay Uno
In paperback and ebook February 2, 2027.
My father had one rule. Every Christmas Eve he stood on a kitchen chair with a glass in his hand and said it to the whole family:
Nobody owes anybody anything
Then I came home one night to an open door and a bathtub still warm, and by morning I had lost everything a man can lose without burying somebody. My baby girl was in a burn unit. Her mother was in a jail cell. My other two daughters were sleeping in a stranger’s house, and the people who took them weren’t in any hurry to give them back.
So I broke my father’s rule. I called in every favor I had. I made calls I swore I would never make. And I went to my father for the one thing he could give me.
He said no.
I got my girls back anyway. It cost me more than money, and it took me places I spent years trying to leave behind. The marriage didn’t survive what came after. I raised three daughters from a couch in a one bedroom apartment, fell in love again when I’d stopped expecting to, and ended up in the last line of work anybody who knew me would have put money on.
And through all of it, my father kept his rule, and I kept my distance.
This is the story of what it cost to get my family back, and of the favors along the way. The ones I asked for. The ones I paid back. And the one I never knew about.
Somebody did something for you once that you never paid back, and maybe never knew about until years later. Hold on to that while you read.
One email when the book comes out, and a few more after that when there’s something worth saying. Nothing else.